Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  Litvinoff was not altogether unaccustomed to being called upon by foreign gentlemen with bold and original views on the subject of visiting-cards. He never refused to see any of these visitors, and always sent them away charmed with the beauty of his sentiments and the liberality of his intentions, and occasionally with something more substantial.

  As the waiter closed the door and retreated with a glance of politely veiled contempt, the man whom he had shown in came forward, and Litvinoff recognised in him at once the person who had been so interested in the ‘Prophetic Vision’ on Sunday evening. He offered the visitor his hand with sunny cordiality.

  ‘I am delighted to see you. I have not forgotten your kind interest in my lecture at the Agora. Please take that arm-chair.’

  The other did so.

  ‘I speak English not well,’ he began. ‘Perhaps the Herr Count speaks German?’

  ‘Certainly,’ he replied, in that language; ‘but to my friends I am not Count, but Citizen Litvinoff.’

  ‘I cannot claim to be a friend of yours,’ said the other, who seemed to speak under the influence of some constraint; ‘but I am a friend to the cause you advocate. I do not come to you for myself, but to ask you to help another, who is in sore trouble and distress.’

  ‘I am very sorry. Who is he?’

  ‘It is a woman. The wife of an exile, one of us, separated from her husband by circumstances I may not tell of, but which are not to the discredit of either.’

  ‘What is her name?’ asked Litvinoff, a shade more interested than if it had been the exiled husband who needed relief.

  ‘I don’t know her name,’ said Hirsch; ‘but she is very poor and very proud, and I am afraid very ill.’

  ‘Unfortunate combination,’ muttered the Count, below his breath, in English.

  ‘But, my good friend Hirsch, how do you propose to give money to this distressed lady, whose name you do not even know?’

  ‘There is only one from whom she will take it, and from him I come. He will give it to her. You will have no credit for your generosity, citizen, for she will not know from whom it comes.’

  ‘I don’t think credit is what we work for, nous autres,’ said the Count, with a slightly injured air.

  ‘I must tell you the truth answered the Austrian, with a shrug of his shoulders and an outward gesture of the palms of his hands.

  ‘Doubtless; but may I not know the name of the benefactor from whose assistance this lady’s pride does not shrink?’

  ‘Assuredly; he told me that if I mentioned his name to you, it would be enough to guarantee your attention.’

  A very slight change passed over the Count’s face, and yet there seemed nothing in that speech to stir up uneasiness. The expression was so transient that it escaped the sharp eyes that watched him from under Hirsch’s shaggy eyebrows.

  ‘Distress itself is the best guarantee for my attention.’

  He rose and unlocked a despatch box and took out a cheque-book.

  As he took up a pen and sat down he asked, —

  ‘What is our friend’s name?’

  ‘His name is Petrovitch. You knew him in Russia, I believe.’

  ‘I have heard much of him lately in London, but I have never been so fortunate as to meet him here.’

  ‘He was with me at the Agora on Sunday.’

  Litvinoff looked up pleasantly from the cheque he had been filling in.

  ‘Ah, so,’ he said, ‘I wonder he could not have answered you about the pamphlet.’

  ‘He could have done,’ said the other rather grimly, ‘if I had thought of asking him, but I did not think of doing so.’

  ‘Well, I must hope soon to meet Citizen Petrovitch. In the meantime give him this, with my best hopes for the welfare of his lady friend. I wish it may be useful, small though it is.’

  ‘There’s no doubt about that,’ said Hirsch, rising as the other held out the cheque, and glancing at the two figures on it, before folding it very small and concealing it in an inner part of his nondescript garments.

  ‘By the way,’ said Litvinoff, ‘I’ve made that out to Petrovitch’s order, as I did not know the lady’s name.’

  ‘It is better so perhaps,’ said Hirsch. ‘ Good day.

  ‘Do not go yet,’ said the other, hospitably; ‘won’t you stay and have some lunch?’

  ‘Thank you, no; I have eaten.’

  ‘Well, at any rate, you’ll have a glass of wine, won’t you?’

  ‘I am not thirsty, I thank you; good day.’

  ‘Good day,’ said the Count, shaking hands cordially. As the door closed behind the other he sank into an arm-chair.

  ‘What an exceedingly fatiguing person. He chooses amiable and courteous messengers, this Petrovitch. I wonder if I did know him in Russia. My memories of childhood’s hour are singularly confused, but it’s impossible to remember everybody, that’s one comfort. It is remarkable how well people remember me, when there’s anything to be got by it. This princely drawing of cheques, however, will come to an abrupt termination shortly, and then — I wonder exactly how long it will be before I send in my name to people on dirty bits of paper as a preface to requests for cheques for destitute lady friends?’

  He deftly rolled a cigarette, lighted it, and then said, musingly, —

  ‘That property in Volhynia, would it be possible — By heaven, it would be a gallant attempt — it would be almost genius. As a forlorn hope it would be sublime; but I have still some hopes that are not forlorn, and the position of an English landowner is not unenviable. It would at any rate enable one to give cheques with a freer hand to any mysterious stranger with dirty linen whose anonymous lady friends may happen to be hard up. Hullo, my friend!’ — as his eye fell on the cigar-case—’I’d almost forgotten you. I suppose I must be about my business. There are very few men, I am convinced, who work as hard for “the daily crust” as I do.’ He flung the end of his cigarette in the fire, and put on his coat.

  ‘And now,’ he said, taking up his hat, ‘to seek the Midland Hotel, and face whichever Ferrier the Fates may send me. Probably I shall have my walk for nothing; they will be engaged in business, these interesting victims of a misunderstanding which I so deeply deplore.’

  He smiled hopefully at himself in the glass, and went out. ‘Is Mr Ferrier in?’ he asked, when he reached the Midland Hotel, and the answer being ‘Yes,’ he turned into the coffee-room to wait, still uncertain as to which brother he should see.

  It was Richard who came down to him after a few minutes — Richard, whose face, ulster, and soft hat all seemed to be of the same shade of drab.

  ‘Good morning, Count Litvinoff,’ he said; ‘can I be of any service to you?’

  ‘It was your brother I wished to see,’ said the Count.

  ‘He did me the honour to spend a few moments at my rooms last night, and I think this must be his. May I trouble you to give it to him?’

  Here he produced the cigar-case.

  ‘I don’t think it belongs to my brother,’ said Richard, ‘and I’m sorry I can’t do anything in the matter; but I sha’n’t see him again.’

  ‘Ah! you are leaving London?’

  ‘I’m leaving this hotel.’

  ‘Well, perhaps you are right to seek one more cheerfully placed. You are not looking well; perhaps this situation depresses you?’

  ‘Oh, I’m all right, thanks. I’m rather glad you happened to call, because I shall perhaps not see you again. I’m afraid I was rather uncivil yesterday, and, if so, I’m sorry: I didn’t intend it, but it struck me afterwards that it might seem so to you. The fact is, I was horribly put out about something.’

  ‘Oh, don’t mention it. I saw then that you were annoyed about something, and now I know what it was. I know enough of English manners, Mr Ferrier, to know that here a stranger’s interference in personal or family matters is the unpardonable sin. But my faith, you know, compels me to set aside conventions that are only conventions, and to try to give help wherever help can be given.<
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  ‘I am so complete a stranger,’ he went on, regardless of a slight movement of impatience from the other, ‘so utterly, so palpably disinterested, that I hope I may without offence say to you what I intended to say to Mr Roland.’

  I don’t see that anything could be said to my brother without offence that could not equally well be said to me.’

  ‘This, then, is what I would ask. Is there anything I can do to effect a reconciliation between you and your brother, and prevent this breach from growing wider?’

  ‘I had never told you that there was any breach,’ Richard said stiffly.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘but all others have not your powers of reticence.

  ‘I presume my brother has been confiding in you.’

  ‘Your brother told me — what perhaps his pride forbade him to tell you — that you had accused him of something of which he assured me he was as innocent as — as I am,’ ended Litvinoff, raising his eyebrows ingenuously.

  Richard’s first impulse was to request the Count to mind his own business, but he remembered that the interferer was a foreigner, and besides, Litvinoff’s manner was so honest, and what he said was true enough. He certainly must be disinterested. So he constrained himself to say, with very little change of manner, —

  ‘If my brother wishes to disprove any charges I may bring, he’d better disprove them to me.’

  ‘But are you quite sure that you were not mistaken? May not your feelings on another matter have predisposed you to believe without evidence enough in this?’

  ‘I quite fail to understand,’ said Richard, frowning.

  ‘Is it not possible that you may have thought of him less as your brother than as your rival?’

  ‘If you have anything more to say that needs saying, I shall he glad if you will say it plainly.’ Richard spoke angrily.

  ‘Plainly, then — you also are a suitor for the hand of Miss Stanley?’

  Ferrier’s hand clenched itself, and then made a little movement which seemed quite involuntary. The blood rushed to his face as he spoke.

  ‘May I ask who gave you that piece of false information?’

  ‘Certainly you may ask,’ answered Litvinoff, smiling very sweetly. Other people’s tempers did not seem to affect him much. ‘You may ask, but I — I must not reply.’

  ‘It is lucky that I don’t need your answer. There’s only one person who would have told you such a lie, and for the future you’d better keep your interference for him, as he seems to like it’

  ‘And you, perhaps you’d better keep your insolence for those who’ll stand it,’ said Litvinoff, with the same gentle smile.

  ‘Perhaps our next meeting may be in a country where it is customary to avenge insults in some other way than what you call, I think, a rough-and-tumble fight. Au revoir!’

  ‘You don’t seem to find other countries very anxious to have you, since you have had to run away from one at least,’ said Richard passionately.

  ‘Oh, delicacy and nobility of English chivalry!’ said the Count, turning at the door to favour the other with one last smile. ‘How unfortunate for Miss Stanley that you at least are impossible. Pouf! The bourgeoisie is the same, all the world over!’

  He lingered in the hall to make himself a cigarette, half expecting Richard to follow him, but as he did not, strolled slowly away into the street.

  Richard remained standing in the coffee-room with one hand on the table by which the conversation had taken place.

  He felt indignantly injured by Litvinoff’s interference, and in the first moments of passion felt sure that his interference had not been disinterested. But as he grew calmer, and was able to think the matter out quietly, he could not suggest to himself any possible reason for the Count’s wishing to adjust the quarrel between himself and Roland, except the one he had given. Yet, even if the Russian had been merely filling the rôle of ‘friend of humanity,’ Dick felt glad that he had shown resentment. One might overlook intermeddling which had its rise in an overpowering interest in one’s own personality; but when one was included merely in a vast aggregate like humanity, the compliment which might have been as salt to over-officiousness did not exist, and the conduct of the Count became simply offensive. But, after all, most of his resentment was levelled at the man who had put this weapon into the Russian’s hands. Had his brother completely lost all sense of honour — of decency even — that he should thus make him, Richard, the subject of confidence with a stranger? And such confidences, too; confidences that hinged on her name.

  ‘But why should I expect anything better from him, after his conduct to that poor child?’

  Then he thought of all he fancied he had discovered about Alice, and all the little things that had aggravated the quarrel with Roland. All the substance of the quarrel would not, perhaps, seem insurmountable if it were written here in detail, but to Richard and his brother these things appeared in far other proportions. The mutual jealousy and distrust that had been growing up between them in the past months was as so much dry tinder ready to catch fire at any spark of a pretext for anger which either might have lighted on.

  And this case of Alice was something more than a trifling pretext. Richard himself was neither an angel nor a monk, but at least he played the game of life according to the rules. And, consequently, he felt towards his brother much as an old écarté player might towards a man who kept kings up his sleeve.

  He decided to spend a few more hours in the search for Alice, which, hitherto unavailing, he had kept up for the last two days, and then he would go down home and see Gates, and Roland would have his wish. The same roof should not cover them again.

  CHAPTER XV. THE CLEON.

  ‘WELL, I hope you will enjoy the evening, my dear; at any rate, it will be a new experience for you, and will show you that some of us can be earnest even in the midst of our life of frivolity and heartlessness. You know, I have been a Socialist almost from my birth.’

  The speaker sighed gently, and adjusted the folds of her rich black satin dress.

  ‘Oh, I am sure I shall enjoy it immensely, dear Mrs Quaid,’ answered Clare Stanley, she being the person addressed; ‘you know, since papa was rescued from those dreadful horses, I have taken such an interest in all these questions. It is too good of you to have asked such an outsider as I am to a gathering like this. I don’t feel frightened of you, because I know how kind you are, but I’m afraid I shall be at a loss with all the rest of the clever people.’

  Mrs Quaid smiled benignantly. ‘Oh, my dear, intellect is not what we care for. The great thing is character.’

  Mrs Quaid emphasised every third or fourth word in such a way as to give to her smallest remarks an apparently profound significance. She was a distinguished member of the Cleon, a small society which met at the houses of members for the purpose of discussing social questions. To-night the meeting was to take place in her own drawing-room, and she had invited her daughter’s school friend, Clare Stanley, to spend the evening, which that young woman was glad enough to do, as her father was going to dine at the ‘Travellers” with a friend, and she did not care to face the long lonely evening in the hotel sitting-room. Besides, Mrs Quaid in herself was always amusing to the girl, whose sharp eyes noticed all the little inconsistencies overlooked by more constant associates. Mrs Quaid had, as she said, been a Socialist almost from her birth, and repudiated with scorn what she termed the ‘ sad distinctions of class,’ but she had such tender consideration for those who did not share her views that she never invited those whom she naively styled ‘ one’s own friends’ to meet any of those members of the working class whom she warmly but fitfully patronised. She was one of those who, while professing the strongest sympathy with the fashionable Socialism, are able to avail themselves of all the advantages which the present system offers to a limited number; and while ardently looking forward to a time when all men would be equal, appear to view with sweet resignation the probable continuance of the present system during their lifetime and that o
f their children.

  On this particular occasion both she and her daughter, a charming specimen of frank English girlhood, were more interested than usual in the business before them.

  This evening was to be a field night. The secretary of the Cleon had captured a genuine Russian Socialist, and the society was disposed to make the most of him.

  Nearly every member was to bring a friend, so the gathering would be a large one. It was very amusing to Miss Stanley to watch the arrivals, and to ticket them in her own mind each with his appropriate epithet, and the more uncomplimentary these epithets were, the more demure and unconscious she looked. Mrs Quaid introduced to her several personal adherents, for the Cleon, like larger assemblies, was not without its party differences. Miss Stanley did not feel particularly drawn towards any of them. They had not had to fly across Russian frontiers, nor had they ever, to her knowledge, imperilled their lives at the heads of runaway horses.

  There was a Civil Service clerk whose strong point was statistics, and another one whose strong point was so obvious an adherence to the principles of the hostess, that he was secretly styled by the irreverent Irreconcilables ‘the member for Quaid.’ He was an advocate for short hours of labour, particularly in Government offices. Then there was an enthusiastic young stockjobber, with a passion for morality in public life, who believed in levelling down — to the level of stockjobbers, and who systematically avoided revolutionary literature, on the grounds that it would prevent his keeping good tempered, and he wished to keep good tempered, which Clare thought very nice of him.

  Then there was the man whose friends thought he was like Camille Desmoulins, and the man who himself thought he was like Danton.

  Then there was a George Atkins, whose care for humanity in the abstract was so great as to soar far above the level of his own wife, who was popularly supposed to have rather a bad time of it.